


like gravel in his lungs

by abettafish



Series: wanderlust [3]
Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Blood and Violence, Gen, Panic Attacks, Serious Injuries, no beta we die like real men, they're kids your honor, this is all backstory, very very light
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28688223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abettafish/pseuds/abettafish
Summary: Some of Dream’s earliest memories are of fire.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: wanderlust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030302
Comments: 8
Kudos: 263





	like gravel in his lungs

**Author's Note:**

> here it is, the long awaited backstory drop. i lowkey kind of hate the second half because it feels rushed, but i was running out of motivation to add ideas. i just wanted to get it out there so then i could post another part that's been done for like a month and have it actually make sense. that part should be up in the next few minutes! and YES that is a chapter two slot waiting to be filled! It'll be a shorter story explaining what happened to techno!
> 
> i apologize for actually never using techno's name in this but i gotta keep up the continuity.

Some of Dream’s earliest memories are of fire. It howls like a pack of hungry dogs, racing through his village with a gleeful sprint as it devours the homes and shops of the people who live there. Like the Wild Hunt, it spares no one who stands in its way and it paints the sky a violent grey with their ashes. The screams of people being shot down under the orders of a grey and teal Pillager banner become background noise to his own desperate whimpers and tearful blubbering.

The hand wrapped in his hair wrenches him forward. He tumbles across the ember covered floor roughly; the small bits of burnt _something_ sending shivers of pain across his skin where they touched. He’s trying hard to control his breathing, like his mother said to do when he was in a scary and overwhelming situation, but the sobs racking his chest in irregular spasm make it difficult.

Dream’s hands ache horribly as he attempts to push himself up, but all he gets for his efforts is a boot to the ribs. It makes him screech, the sound similar to a baby animal desperate for its mother’s protection. But the last time he’d seen his mother she’d been under the watchful eye of a crossbow.

(He doesn’t see his mother again.)

Dream scrabbles away, but within the confines of the half-burnt building, there isn’t many places to flee. Instead, he fits himself behind a bit of collapsed roof and watches the group of Pillagers with wide eyes. There is a dreadful sting crawling along his face and Dream is finding it hard to focus with his right eye – there must be ash in it. It doesn’t stop him from spotting the imposing outline of a Nether Portal sitting in the middle of the room. 

“Got another kid for the portal,” The man who carried him in announces. The others, who are working on fastening what looks like bundles of TNT to the frame, glance over to him.

“Seems a little fucked up to be throwing them in there,” One comments as he tightens a knot. His kidnapper swings an axe he was lofting about over his shoulder.

“Listen, I don’t ask questions. I just take the money,” He says. “They want the kids dumped into a portal, then that’s what I do. Speaking of –”

The man stalks over to Dream and, with nowhere to go, scruffs him. He drags Dream to the portal and forces him to a stop nearly less than a foot away. He can hear the rhythmic hisses of the idle dimensional door. Dream has never gone to the Nether himself, barely being older than ten at this point, but his father has. The tales he’s told about the otherworldly place sound like a fire-y hell Dream would pray to never see in person. 

“Puh – puh,” Dream stutters over the word, the desperate _please_.

“ _Puh_ , _puh_!” The man’s laugh is hoarse as he mocks the child in his grasp. He reaches down and rummages through a bag at the portal’s base.

“Get this, kid, our employer wants us to destroy both sides of this portal. Which, I don’t know if ya know anything about Nether Portals, but that’s sorta damn hard to do without trappin’ one of ours in there as well.” He pulls out a bundle of TNT from the bag. “But I had this real smart idea, ya see, what if I –”

The man presents the TNT to one of his compatriots, who is holding a flint and steel. One click, two click and the wick lights. It’s a slow burn down and Dream’s green eyes track its course with a hysterical fixation.

“Get someone else to do it,” The man jerks Dream’s shirt open at the neck and shoves the bundle of explosives in. Instantly, it scorches a line down his chest. An ungodly scream rips from the young boy’s throat and it’s like every part of his body has been lit up with adrenaline. He turns and scrambles against The Pillager’s chest in an attempt to escape. The man is stronger than him by a long shot and retrieves his axe in a swift motion, using it in a baseball bat style to floor Dream in an instant.

The hit lands directly against his throat and it leaves him gasping for breath. He gets no reprieve as the Pillager brutally picks him up by his neck and shoves him through the portal. For a moment, Dream is floating in a peaceful bubble.

Then he is slamming into hot gravel, sucking in nothing but sickening fumes, and grasping for a single strand of mercy.

None comes.

Dream knows he has seconds before him and the portal next to him are wiped from existence. He rips at his shirt desperately, pulling its fabric from his pants and creating the space needed for the TNT to fall victim to gravity and slip from his garments.

The fraction of a second this happens he is wrenching his body away from his death. It’s a stumbling foot forward, but his legs take him just far enough that the blast is like a warm breath along his skin. The debris from the blast, however –

The portal shatters like glass, the netherrack covering the ground is set ablaze by the TNT and something within that mess shoots out to drop Dream like a sack of rocks. Miraculously, his consciousness stays with him. 

Pain explodes along his face and a scream so hopeless and hoarse rips from his throat. It is so guttural that the Zombie Piglins standing nearby deign it disturbing enough to turn attention. Dream curls into himself as hot tears mingles with blood dripping down his cheeks. His chest heaves to pull in air through a bruised esophagus. He looks pitiful and can only be thankful that the Zombie Piglins nearby aren’t hostile as he fades off.

His world is off center when his eyes open next. It’s also bobbing at a steady pace. His arms hang limply over someone’s shoulders and he hears a grunt as he is shifted further up a soft surface. Who is carrying him – ?

Dream’s only form of protest is a minute croak. His throat is raw and unusable while his limbs ache to the point of stiffness. The gait of whoever is carrying him stutters, probably due to his apparent wakefulness. There’s a soft series of small bleats that don’t sound human. Matter of fact, the floppy, yet pointed, ears crowding his vision aren’t normal either. 

“ _Wha_ –” His throat catches fire and the words are sent through a grinder before they even finish. It _hurts_. He swallows hard and that sends another painful wave down to his lungs. He can’t speak, so he settles for using his hands. Dream gently pats the ~~creature’s~~ shoulder, which causes them to stop completely in their motions. He wiggles, trying to slip his thighs out of their carrying grasp. It’s an obvious demand to _let down_ and whoever this is obliges easily. It put some of Dream’s anxiety at ease. They wouldn’t let him go so easily if they planned on hurting or capturing him.

Dream, however, doesn’t expect his legs to be made of water and the moment his feet touch the red grass of the Crimson Forest they’ve been traveling through, he drops to the ground. It rattles his entire body – his face being the worse – and the shocked gasp of pain makes the other jump to his attention, whipping around with a startled snort. 

Dream feels hands hovering over him, afraid to come in contact in case they cause more duress. When his eyes move up to meet his, – savior? Dream wasn’t sure what to call them – he meets garnet red eyes and a wild mess of pink hair that looks like it was hacked at with the dull end of a sword. The mouth that produces such concerned oinks has two small tusks sitting inside it looking more like fangs then the pig features they were supposed to be.

It’s a boy, no older than him, with a human face adorned with such Piglin-like features.

Dream’s eyes are wide at this discovery. He’d never seen of anything like them. Hybrids weren’t _unheard_ of, but they were a rare and unique existence. The little hybrid uses a black claw tipped finger to point towards a cave nestled in a wall not to far from where they were. Its entrance is covered in red vines hanging like curtains that obscure it slightly from view.

He oinks at Dream, who now realizes that these aren’t just random noises but words in a language he doesn’t know. Dream’s head shakes slightly, not sure how to convey his confusion without hurting himself. The Piglin hybrid huffs and motions at his own throat and then face before going around his wrist like he’s wrapping something around it.

Dream doesn’t understand. Yes, his face is in extreme pain and his vision is still blurry through one eye even now that he has gotten down off the Piglin boy’s back and, _yes_ , his throat feels like it’s been removed, jostled around, and then put back. He doesn’t understand what pointing that out _means_.

The hybrid huffs and reaches down to snatch Dream’s wrist. It startles him how strong the boy’s grip is, but Dream lets them drag him to his feet finish the trek to the cave. The boy knocks the red foliage aside just enough to clear his entry path, but it’s just short for Dream’s – who gets a face full of vines as he is dragged through them.

“Ah!” It’s the most understandable thing to come out of his mouth and even then, it’s just a wounded noise. The pink haired boy startles at the sound and drops Dream’s hand like he’s been bitten. A fear ripples across the boy’s face that makes Dream curl back as well. The contagious skittishness leaves them both still and weary.

Timidly, the boy puts out a hand, a gentle offering that has no dark consequences tied harshly too it. Dream takes the boys hand with growing confidence. He’d brought him this far – Dream felt like he had nothing to fear.

Much more gently than he had earlier, the boy leads him to the back of the cave and sits him down on a rock. Now, with the wind down of adrenaline, Dream can feel the ache that snakes around his whole body in crystalline clarity. The exhaustion that creeps up his back like shadows over a mountain during sunset. Dream’s body starts to slump as the boy rummages through a chest.

The Piglin hybrid produces a roll of gauze and a salve in a small jar. He is gentle in getting Dream to look up so he can inspect the wound across Dream’s face better. His face doesn’t inspire confidence, but Dream supposes he is lucky to be alive after all of that. All that destruction and that man putting a _bomb_ in his shirt before throwing him into this unforgiving, cruel terrain.

He doesn’t notice the salty tears running down his cheeks until he feels a newer sting and the hybrid boy makes a concerned noise. He wants to apologize – he’s been nothing but trouble since the hybrid boy found him. But he’s gotten his calm before the storm, now the dam has broken and Dream can help himself. A sob shakes his ribs harshly, rattling bones that have taken too much abuse today.

He tries to explain himself, but his voice is only able to produce a pathetic wheeze past the tears and snot. He doesn’t think it’ll be coming back anytime soon. The hybrid waits patiently for him to subdue his shaking shoulders, only dipping in to lightly clean his wounds when he can.

It’s a shoddy job, but it’s the best he can do and neither of the two young boys really notice anyhow. Finally, he hands Dream a potion bottle. It’s nearly empty, but with the sheepish face Dream catches that he understands that this won’t be enough to truly make a difference in his recovery, but some is better than none. Dream sips on the last bit of the potion. The boy takes the empty glass bottle from him and stores it back into his chest.

He gets handed a blanket that has a few holes in it, but it does the job of bringing some comfort to him. It certainly isn’t for keeping him warm because the lava a few yards from the entrance of this cave does a well enough job of that.

Dream tucks himself against the wall and lets the exhaustion that’s been tempting him into a restless sleep take him.

His voice doesn’t come back for months. He can get out small sounds and that help with conveying general ideas with his companion, while the other attempts to teach him how to understand the Piglin language through a spirited show-and-tell method are going as well as one would expect. Dream is picking it up piece by piece, and the two can communicate rather well.

Well, enough to navigate around the men creeping around the Nether looking for, presumably, Dream – or other kids _like_ Dream. This must have been what the Pillager was talking about. They throw the kids into a nightmare, where they’re too scared to run and just come in and round them up. It twists his stomach in a disgusting way. Why would they do such a thing? It didn’t make sense to Dream.

(Later in life, when he presents as an Omega, he understands. It doesn’t make him feel any less sick.)

He is thankful that he was found, however, because with the way they comb the area, he doesn’t think he would have enough skill and know-how to escape them. More so with his injuries. He learns more and more everyday from the hybrid boy. He teaches Dream how to hold the golden swords that reign supreme in the Nether, how to climb the steep slopes of hot dirt and avoid falling into lava. He comforts Dream as his wounds ache and tears fall heavy on his skin.

They travel now, towards a fortress that the Piglin boy had found a few weeks prior. They needed some more resources and they both were willing to risk the dangers of the dark halls to maybe score on some higher quality loot.

Dream finds himself testing his skills and climbing up the hills alongside the path the older boy was taking. Normally, this was his job, but Dream was feeling daring. Most of his major injuries were healed – the sight in his right eye never came back completely but he adjusted. It was still a hindrance, on occasion, like this one.

Dream doesn’t see the unstable netherrack before his foot catches some soft dirt that crumbles under his weight. A raspy noise meant to be a yelp leaves his throat as his leg collapses under him and he tumbles downwards. His body rolls once over sharp rocks before crashing into something, taking it down with him as he starts to tumble even further. A pair of clawed hands grapple his midsection and Dream realizes he must have hit his friend on the way down. Dream tries to grab the dirt as they go, digging his fingers into the hot substance to slow their descent. Going down quickly in the Nether never ends well.

It’s the panicked Piglin noises that make him double his efforts, both boys struggling to find purchase during their fall. Dream hears the sliding metal of a blade before an arm arcs to stab into the side of the incline they’ve been falling down. It pulls them to a halt with a jarring tug. An arm is still wrapped around his stomach, and they’re both breathing heavily, but they’re alive.

Dream glances over to the pink haired boy, who is already looking at him with wide eyes. He lets out a shaking breath, before a small laugh bubbles in his mouth. His companion gives him a swift eye roll before letting his head fall back with an exhausted sigh.

They would make it to the Fortress, loot the place, and return home with little incident. It was months later, when they would return out of curiosity, that their world changed. 

They creep around the Nether Portal, wondering if it was here last time they came or if it had been recently created – either way it was a way to the Overworld. They just needed to return back to camp and gather their valuables and then come back. Dream could feel excitement curling in his gut. This was perfect! They could get out and finally bask in the sun for the first time in nearly a year.

He ran his hand along the black rock that made up the frame of the portal in wonderment. They’d been searching and searching for a portal that wasn’t damaged or dangerous. Now, one had just sprung up right in front of them. It was almost too easy. But maybe they’d finally caught a break –

A hand appears on his shoulder the same moment the agonized screech of a ghast fills the air. It fills Dream’s lungs with horror as he turns to find the source. It had sounded so close! Instead, he finds his body being shoved and his vision being clouded by purple particles.

“ _No!_ ” It’s the first real word he’s shouted in months. It’s scratched and terrible and rips the flood gates open for the waterfall of sorrow to come. The last time he sees the little pink haired Piglin boy in a long, long time is the ingrained image of him falling with the crumbled pieces of bridge where the Ghast explosion had landed.

Dream’s body lands on grass. It’s soft and a little bit itchy. It’s _bright_ , so much so that his eyes instantly screw shut and start to water. A pained noise leaves his mouth and Dream uses his hands to provide an extra layer of protection against the blinding sun’s light. He was used to the low lights of the glow stone, and while the lava was bright, it was never so _intense._

He almost doesn’t notice the hands trying to soothe him, or the voices speaking a familiar language that still somehow sounds so foreign. Something soft is placed over his head and it helps with blocking out the light, enough that he can move his hands from his face. They’re damp with tears, but he is finally able to calm down.

It doesn’t last long.

The realization comes next. Dream feels hot tears form on his eyelashes and a sob shakes his shoulders. How could he have done that? What didn’t he just push them both through? They could have made it. Why did he –

He was dead, wasn’t he?

Dream’s inconsolable, surrounded by strangers that mean him no harm but bring him no comfort. They don’t understand what’s wrong with him, as he can only get out simple words to convey his needs. It is explained to him that they’re a group working in opposition to the Pillager and that the portal he came through was one that they made to search for kids like him.

They give him a mask to help with the sun, to readjust to the bright days of the Overworld. He finds himself unable to take it off – it helps with the tears. They send him off, after a week, to a doctor that can help him with speech therapy and healing his throat around the damage done to it. It’s arduous and he feels like he is missing a part of himself the entire time.

Dream is eventually moved out of the hospital and into a foster home that he doesn’t leave until he walks out himself. He does a lot of that, afterwards.

 _Walking_. 


End file.
